‘I know all about it,’ she said. ‘I telephoned to the doctor last night. Thomas told me he had fetched him. How do you do, Mr Canyot— ‘this was in recognition of the young man’s opening the gate for her.’ And my dear, dear child!’ She embraced Nelly with tender effusiveness. ‘And there is Grace! Take these things, Grace, will you? It’s eau-de-cologne, my dear, and some of my best roses. I thought he would be glad to think I’d remembered to bring them. And now you’ll take me upstairs at once won’t you? Well, Mr Storm, I’m afraid all this is very sad and disturbing to you. It must be terribly upsetting to you writers, when something really human breaks in on your inventions. Dear, dear child!’ She still continued to retain tight hold of Nelly’s hand while she addressed her words to the two men. ‘And you, Mr Canyot, you’ve had your own loss of course; and no doubt you know how to comfort our little Nell. It is very nice that she has both of you to fall back upon. It would have been doubly sad if she’d had nobody but an old friend like me …
‘Yes, Grace. In water, Grace. It would be a pity for them to wither while we can fancy he enjoys them. Ah my dear, my dear’ — this was addressed to Nelly again — ‘we old people must seem very tiresome sometimes to you young ones. But when it’s all over I daresay you miss us. Yes; at once if you please. Yes; do take me up at once.’
Preceded by Grace and escorted by Nelly, Mrs Shotover walked solemnly up the little creaking stairs. What did actually go on under that high forehead and behind that elegantly poised head no human being will ever know. She shed no tear at the sight of her old friend. Very gracefully, and like a great actress in a play, she stooped, and kissed him; once on the forehead, and then with a quick birdlike movement, a sort of fleeting afterthought, on the bloodless lips.
Nelly thought she detected a furtive glance into the mirror as they went out together after placing the roses on the table; but her rush of cynical thoughts was dissipated in a wave of sympathetic feeling when she noticed that the hand which rested on her arm as she helped the old lady downstairs shook like a leaf in the wind.
‘Very beautiful and very peaceful,’ she said, addressing the two men when she came out into the garden; for the one thing that Nelly wanted to avoid at that moment was to be left alone with her.
‘And now you two must come back to lunch with me,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Grace will be glad to have you off her hands. She doesn’t look as if she was fit to do a thing more. I daresay Mr Canyot will be available if he’s wanted. Oh yes you must both of you come. It would be quite the dear man’s wish, I’m certain of that. You must let me take you all in hand. He would wish it. You see I did understand him. Mr Canyot is just the right person to take care of dear faithful Grace. Aren’t you, Mr Canyot? An artist like you is always so nice to simple natures. Have you thought of taking a death mask? No, I suppose not. Oh, there’s just one more thing — if you don’t mind, Nelly dear. No! No! I’ll be down in a minute. Just one little thing. You must humour an old woman, my pet. One minute!’ And with more alacrity than she had yet displayed Mrs Shotover went up for the second time to the room above.
What passed on this occasion between those ancient friends only the invisible watchers of life and death will ever know. When she came down again the old lady was a little quieter.
While she was away, Richard had whispered to Nelly — ‘Do you really wish to go with her?’ Nelly had nodded. ‘And you’d like me to come too?’ Nelly had nodded again. ‘I don’t want to be alone with her today; and we can’t hurt her feelings. She was Father’s friend.’
So Nelly climbed up by Mrs Shotover’s side in the front of the dog-cart; and Richard held on at the back in company with Thomas.
Never had the author of The Life of Verlaine had so uncomfortable a drive.
He felt as though Mrs Shotover had ears in the back of her head and heard every word he said to Thomas; Thomas, in any case, was the most taciturn of feudal servants and had already acquired a prejudice against him as a foreigner and not quite the right sort of gentleman.
The lunch passed easily enough; for after the stress they had been through, and the long jolting drive over the Downs, they were both hungry. The uncomfortable time for Richard came afterwards, when they lingered over the coffee in Mrs Shotover’s drawing room.
Nelly clung resolutely and tenaciously to her husband. She seemed to have made a vow not to be separated from him for a moment; their hostess, whether she liked it or not, had no alternative but to submit.
So Richard became aware of the enormous importance, in events of this kind, of the right fabrics to be selected for a young woman’s mourning.
Of course you’ll leave it all to me, ‘said Mrs Shotover.’ I’ll drive you in to Selshurst tomorrow and have you fitted. They keep the medium sizes practically made up, you know. And you’re a good medium, my dear. Just a few touches here and there, and that sweet little Mrs Fortescue will fit you to a nicety! I’d have had her over here this afternoon, if we’d only known in time. You needn’t look so pompous and reproachful, Mr Storm. Need he, Nelly? Your dear father never minded my little jokes.
‘Ah you modern men, you modern men! You’re always grave when you ought to laugh; and you chuckle like wicked ogres when you ought to be grave.
‘The question of Nelly’s looking nice at her father’s funeral, when quite a lot of the neighbourhood may be there, is not a thing to laugh at. No gentleman ever laughs at a woman for her seriousness about dress. That kind of humour is just pure vulgarity and shows simple ignorance of life. It’s like the bucolic laughter of stupid rustics when they see well-dressed people coming out of church.’
‘I haven’t been in an English drawing room for quite ten years,’ remarked Richard, in an effort to change the conversation.
‘So I imagined!’ was on the tip of Mrs Shotover’s tongue; but she substituted for it, ‘Dear me! How glad you must be to be civilized again!’
‘I don’t like drawing rooms,’ said Nelly. ‘I’ve never had one. I think men’s rooms are much nicer.’
‘That’s what all the young people say now,’ cried the old lady. ‘You’ll turn England into a dreadful place soon, where there’s no more society and no more good manners and no more good conversation. You should have seen the tea parties we used to have at Fixden Manor in my young days. There was a drawing room for you! And the men were witty too. I can remember old Lord Trace-bridge, how he used to flirt with my aunt, Lady Gower. That room had no less than seven mirrors. One of them got cracked one day; and the Bishop of Sodor and Man said to Grandmamma — but that’s too naughty a story to repeat before Mr Storm! I’ll tell it you tomorrow, Nelly, when we’re driving to Selshurst’
Richard looked round Mrs Shotover’s drawing room with an eye of unmingled contempt. There was not one single book to be seen in any direction except a great morocco-covered edition of the poems of Lord Byron, lying on its side on a tortoiseshell slab, and a tiny volume of 151 Dodd’s Beauties of Shakespeare, used as a letter-weight on the lady’s rosewood writing table.
To make up for the lack of books there were endless vases of flowers of every conceivable size and colour; there were plants in Japanese pots and plants in Chinese pots and plants upon little stands of old English pottery.
On the mantelpiece and on every available space in the room were an incredible assortment of objects that could hardly be called objets d’art.
The most harmless of this gallery of knickknacks were portraits of elegant human beings, nearly all of them in full dress, varying from the dark ancient daguerreotypes in silhouette down to the latest modern photographs of young soldiers and young society belles.